• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, May 19, 2009

To entice night owls into its restaurants, Denny's created "Denny's Allnighter" between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. -- a special environment featuring affordable, easy-to-share menu items, alternative music and relaxed server uniforms.

Now, the Allnighter concept is being promoted via a campaign dubbed "Creature Comforts," employing "irreverent, tongue-in-cheek content," social media and mobile applications keyed to the target audience.

Denny's is "reaching out to a new generation of late-night diners who grew up in the fast-food universe," said chief marketing and innovation officer Mark Chmiel, in a statement. "We want them to know that Denny's delivers great, affordable food in a relaxed comfortable atmosphere, at the times that fit their lifestyles."

The campaign's 30- and 15-second TV spots -- which will run during late-night programming on NBC, Comedy Central, MTV, VH1 and Fuse -- feature four characters: Wade the T-Rex, Steve the Unicorn, Finn the Leprechaun and Gary the Regular Guy, who hang out together at Denny's after attending a show. The tagline is: "Good Friends, Good Value."

Starting next week, the four characters will also be featured in original webisodes hosted on comedy sites and at dennysallnighter.com, and personalized character profile pages will appear on social networking sites, including Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.

Fans also will be able to download an interactive iPhone application, "Denny's Dance Allnighter," from the Web and through iTunes. The app will allow users to compete as the characters in a recreation of a dance video game, and will incorporate sound bites from the characters and webisodes, as well as promotions for menu items.